The First "SMS Court" Granted Divorce in China

The judge of a small Chinese city Tianjin has recently overseen a first case of divorce by a text message. The married pair who decided to give up family life were in their 40’s and already in their second marriage.

The thing which has attracted the attention towards this case was that both of the spouses were deaf and mute. Wang Hong and Zhang Hai married four years ago; however the wife demanded divorce 3 months ago on the grounds of incompatibility. Mr. Hai went sharply against the divorce, trying to explain in the sign language to the audience, how difficult it is for a couple with disabilities to build firm ties and an ever-lasting family.

The thing which is remarkable about this case is the decision of the judge to use text messages for overcoming communication pitfalls: “The case was not complex but it was hard to judge because they were both deaf-mute, in the end we found using mobile phone text messages was an effective way of communicating.”

As long as Zhang lived a long way from the court, and in any case there was no point for him to be present during the sessions because of his disabilities, the judge authorized using mobile text messages as an official medium of informing the husband about the legal proceedings.

After lengthy sms negotiations, Zhang accepted his wife’s will to divorce. The final sms written to Zhang from his wife was the- soz i dnt luv u anymr :( -which left nothing to the husband but giving in.

This unusual sms-court took at least 200 text messages and created an interesting precedent for the lawyers and experts all over the world. Whether this manner of legal proceedings has a promising future, we can only wonder.